New emergency landing patent is crazy

June 21, 2006

An inventor from Bangkok is trying to patent an emergency landing system for aircrafts which throws it into a horizontal spin. The current procedure for crash landings is to make a controlled belly flop so as to avoid nearby buildings and distribute force across the body. The new idea, however, is to fit planes with explosive charges so when a crash is inevitable the charges will go off and blow off one of the wings from the fuselage, causing the plane to enter a horizontal spin. The idea is for the spinning motion to mimic a helicopter blade and produce lift while the centrifugal force keeps the plane level.

It sounds good in theory, but a plane spinning at a rate fast enough to produce lift seems like it'd kill all the passengers inside anyways. Or at least mash them up against the windows real good.